How to prepare for finals

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Yoga, time management, sleep. These natural remedies all have one thing in common: finals week. From freshmen to seniors, students wrangle for space in the labs and fight for extra credit from their professors as the final showdown to save their grades approaches.

As a senior here at Point Park, I have had the chance to play trial and error with how to best prepare and execute finals, while still maintaining my sanity. After reviewing what worked best for me, I narrowed my techniques down to four ideas. Lots of sleep, surrounding myself with good energy, balancing work and play and a good healthy eating schedule.

Sleep – I think every college student can agree that getting a good amount of it is hard to do around this time in the semester, but rest is essential to survive the lead up to finals. The way I see it is this; figure out a time that you can have everything done: assignments, studying and time for friends, then commit to shutting everything down. It’s going to be hard the first or second try but the sooner you commit to a schedule the more rested you will feel, causing you to be more
productive throughout the day.

Good energy – something our generation thrives off of. The people we surround ourselves with on a daily basis play a huge role in how we operate. I’m talking about friends, these people can sometimes make or break your day. Avoiding this is key to keeping spirits high while juggling all the work that is due. Communicate and let your friends know you’re there for support, what you give them they will give in return.

Balance – a term many college students are familiar with, but not too good at executing. Balance is hard, but when done correctly, finals week can actually be fun. The anxiety from finals week comes from us being so ready to be done, but imagine that anxiety eliminated because you have fun while working hard. It’s almost Christmas and the weather isn’t too bad, go out and reward yourself for studying so hard or completing that complex project. Ice skating, happy hour, movies, shopping – there are endless possibilities. As long as you balance work and play finals week can actually be bearable.

My last technique is, in my opinion, the most important. Have a healthy eating routine. In my personal experience, what I eat and when I eat play a huge role in how much energy I have and how involved I am in class. Our bodies need food as much as a car needs gas, without it we cannot operate correctly.

So please, if you do anything to prepare for finals, eat. Eating three meals a day will
ensure your energy, and like dominos, you will see how the energy from that food trickles down fueling you for whatever may come your way.

Finals week may seem like the big bad monster that no one can conquer, but in all
honesty, all any student needs is the right armor to tackle the beast and come out victorious.